Thoughts and pictures of my wanderings through the Allegheny Mountains hunting grouse and woodcock with my Ryman-type English Setters during the fall and winter months, fishing for smallmouth bass in local streams and rivers during the summer months and wandering over my 66 acres of heaven year round.

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

My Legacy

People are always asking me when am I going to start sells apples or making cider from all the apple trees I've been planting. But my thoughts from the beginning were not to make a profit from my trees but to leave a living legacy for future generations to enjoy. To have the chance to walk through apple trees full of spring blooms or picking a tree ripened apple, wiping it on their sleeve and taking a crunchy, juicy bite. My earliest and fondest memories of wandering the woods as a boy were of finding old apple trees, ancient remnants of the past. Planted by some long forgotten farmer who tried to scratch out a living on the poor rocky soil that I now plant my trees in. Most of the rootstock I use for my trees will still be thriving 75 or 100 years after I've planted it and although my name will be long forgotten I can only hope that some wandering hunter or hiker will stumble upon my orchards and wonder about the person who planted these trees all those years ago.

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My first graft of this spring is an Oliver. Grown from a seed on John Oliver's Arkansas farm in the early 1800's. It is just one of dozens of old heirloom varieties that I'll be grafting this spring.